


Without You

by CatherineFox



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, I'm Bad At Tagging, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Recovery, Sad Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 16:23:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9450143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatherineFox/pseuds/CatherineFox
Summary: Derek's dead, and Stiles is left dealing with losing the man he loves.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what compelled me to write this one, and it is not a happy one, be warned!  
> If you guys find something I've missed to tag (which given my uselessness in tagging, I am sure you will), let me know and I will fix it. All errors are mine, as this is not betad, so please don't mind those or point them out, whichever suits your fancy.
> 
> That said, enjoy! ^_^

He feels the bed stir under a familiar weight, and he cracks his eyes open, just barely. Derek has the covers in his fist, and is slowly crawling away from him.

“Der?” he murmurs.

Derek smiles at him, warm and bright. “Go to sleep, Stiles.”

“’kay. Luv you.”

“Love you, too, Stiles.”

Stiles drifts away even before Derek exits the room. Derek smiles at him one last time, and then he closes the door carefully.

 

Stiles wakes up in a silent apartment, the other half of the bed empty and Derek’s spot cold. He thumbs his eyes open, ruffles his head to scratch away an itch. His entire body is sore, a pleasant reminder of the night before. Derek had been extremely attentive to his needs, comforting and seeking at the same time, skating each inch of his against Stiles’ body. Stiles doesn’t want that feeling of rightness gone.

He is out the bed and leaving the bedroom, before even noting his movements. He expects Derek in his boxers, making them breakfast, but instead finds an empty apartment. His brows furrow, and he spins on his heels, his socks making the movement an easily accomplishable. He spots his partner on the terrace, lounging in a chair and a smile curves his lips on its own volition.             

“Derek, what in the hell are you doing out there in this weather?”

The man in question offers no response, so Stiles steps further outside. “Derek?”

The next time he calls out his partner’s name, it is a cry that is ripping itself out of his chest.

 

A sweater is placed in his lap, his knees are tucked in under his chin and he is shaking. The tears on his cheeks had already dried up, and he can’t find it in him to shed another set. The bustle in the apartment is distant, most unwanted. People seem to be endlessly coming and going, different set of steps accompanying the voices which echo about the walls.

The bed is still unmade, as he had left it the very morning. The wool under his nose carries the distinct smell of Derek’s cologne. It is the same smell lingering on Derek’s pillowcase, which Stiles had punched a great deal of times after the initial shock had ebbed and anger had taken its place. He had begged, and screamed, and crawled, and begged, and he had no ounce of energy left in him for any of those anymore.

His heart is set on blaming himself, as it seems the easiest way, the only one he can find any truth in. His body is weak under the self-placed reprimands. As is his mind. Gaze blankly set by his feet, tuned away towards a distant memory of the man he loves with every string of his being. Is he dreaming?

 

Stiles spends most of the following week curled under the covers, staring at the wall ahead. He knows having people worry over him is not right, but he cannot force himself to leave the bed. The food they bring him tastes stale, which he knows is not the case. The water he gulps desperately would feel much better if it were a stronger beverage. And, the pillow would be more comforting if it were Derek’s chest.

He doesn’t shower the whole time, simply drawls to the bathroom and back out of necessity. He can’t look at Derek’s products in the shower, at his light green toothbrush on the sink, because he knows he will have to pack them away. And, he doesn’t want to. It would only prove to point Derek is gone from his life, from their apartment and from the home they had built together.

He doesn’t know how he will be able to keep moving forward, if he will ever keep on from the ordeal to smile, or to let himself relax. It feels impossible with his every muscle flexed tensely, wired like a string waiting to break.

His hand wanders to the picture of Derek on his nightstand, smiling, crinkles by his eyes. Stiles remembers taking that picture three months into their relationship. They had been ecstatic going to the wolf preserve, inexplicably so. And, that memory seems tainted to Stiles. Shattered and destroyed, himself alike. The frame flies through the room, colliding with the door, and crumbling into pieces on the ground.

Stiles closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, his father is standing at the doorway. John looks equally as sleep-deprived and devastated as his son does.

“Anything else you’d like to break?”

A tear rolls down Stiles’ cheek. “Everything.”

John takes a seat on the edge of the bed, and Stiles drifts into his father’s arms, cheek pressing in his shoulder.

“I know, son. I know.” John murmurs in his ear.

For the first time in a week he lets himself cry his sorrows out.

 

The first months after Derek’s death, an ever-lasting string of _what ifs_ settles in his mind, not letting him breathe. What if he had gotten up with Derek? Would he have made a change in the outcome, or would he have prolonged Derek’s misery further? He shuffles through his memories thinking of all the details he could have changed. But, every fight had seemed justified at the time, as had every embrace.

None of the pondering ever clears the pressure against his chest – that suffocating fog crawling from one’s own despair and self-abnegation. Most of the time he finds his head thrown back and a song on his lips as a mark of the love they had shared, the love they share.

And, on a good day he allows himself to remember Derek. The questions seem to scatter on those occasions and he drinks in those moments as a starved man, their rarity making them more of an ambrosia than Stiles allows himself to admit. He recalls the late nights and the early mornings, Derek getting on his nerves and then making up to him through cuddles. On those nights he goes to bed with Derek by his side, though gone, and makes up for the lost rest over the week.

When his thoughts grow unmanageable – on those days he doesn’t let himself count on not doing something stupid – he visits his father, to give his mind a rest. He goes there to be swamped with questions and tasks, with Scott and Allison’s girls. To have toys thrown at him, as he tries to fight off pillows landing on his head and back. And, it is successfully managed. Most of the time.

He lets those moments of utter destruction drown him, since at the end of the day, he notices the little touches of recovery. The absence of his partner feels lighter, the bed doesn’t seem as empty as it had at first, the bathroom’s walls don’t come crumbling down on him each time he takes a step inside. So, he grieves and cries and falls, to pick himself up and rise again. Derek would have wanted it.

 

He lays a bouquet on Talia’s and Stephan’s grave first, and divides another to place something over the grave on every relative Derek had. He spends the day of the anniversary as Derek had done, sitting there and just talking about anything and everything.

He finds it reviving, so he keeps going to the cemetery. He tells Derek about his days, which are mostly empty, but he had never had a problem with talking.

He is at Derek’s grave the first time the idea springs to his mind. “I should write a story about us. Well, not about us. Readers would hate me so much.” He can imagine Derek saying, ‘ _They would love you with your eccentricity intact.’_

“I should write about Kate, and what she did to you and your family. I should write about Laura, and how much you loved each other. I should let the world know there was a man out there somewhere who turned out better than life had planned for him. A person who made his grief and loneliness into a strength. A person who took all inhuman and tragic, and made it charitable and kind. I should write about the man I fell in love with.”

 

He starts on the book a week later, decides on not sharing it with anyone. It takes up most of his days, but he doesn’t have much to do. He pours his emotions into words, depicts scenes Derek had shared with him as vividly as he can, trying his upmost best to do them justice. To make Derek proud.

Three chapters into the book, he reopens their albums and spends a whole day sorting through pictures of them, making sure not to mess up Derek’s cataloguing. Having a solid proof of Derek’s existence in his hands – even if it is just pictures – wakes a gratefulness for Derek’s dedication in having _an old-fashioned, open-and-remember album, Stiles._ He falls asleep in a pile of their pictures, and though sore, wakes up with a smile on his lips. It is the first time since the funeral that the thought of Derek had made him smile.

Another five chapters later, Stiles goes back to where they had had their first date. He orders Derek’s favorite, pulls out his laptop and revisits the written. He is not sure if people will want to read it, but he knows he would’ve jumped at an opportunity to read a book as devastating, yet upbringing as his seems to be coming along.

A week later has him crying over the keyboard, devastated at his loss, which doesn’t seem as heavy as Derek’s must have been. He wishes he could have met them, all of them, along with the non-guarded Derek. He spends the night at John’s, and his dad doesn’t ask a question before pulling a bottle of scotch and pours them a glass each. He goes to bed with a buzz under his skin, in one of Derek’s wandering shirts and dreams of a future he would have liked for them.

Stiles finishes the book within half a year. The last line brings tears and he is happy because of it. He had finally learned crying would not wash away the memories and the lived. Make it easier, yes, but they would never take it away. Stiles closes the document with a smile. He had given paper-Derek a happy ending, as was only right.

The first copy of the book, on his request, is placed in his hands. The first page reads,

_Dedicated to D.H._

_I miss you, sourwolf._  
Always yours.  
Stiles

He wraps his arms around it, and watches hungry arms prey copies off the shelves. Barely an hour since the opening. If only Derek could see.

 

He spends days going to the cemetery to read the written out of that first copy. From time to time he still thinks about that night, ponders if he could have made a difference. Asks himself daily he does, how he had missed the signs?

But, it is alright in the end. He recognizes he will be able to move on. Not yet, but one day. One day he will adopt that little girl they had planned, he will give her everything they should have together and he will tell her about Derek, about the father she never got to have.

Some day he will be that lucky man.

He skids his fingers along the marble, murmuring, “I don’t understand why you didn’t say anything, Derek. But, I forgive you your weakness. I even forgive you leaving me alone.”

_I will never leave your side._

Stiles understands why Derek didn’t keep that promise. He places a white tulip on the ground. Forgiveness.


End file.
